The 'Little Dissolution' of the 1520s.

In the 1520s Cardinal Wolsey dissolved 29 monastic houses, appropriating the revenue to support two colleges at Oxford and Ipswich. This paper reviews the procedures employed by Cromwell, Wolsey's agent, to bring about these suppressions, and the contemporary significance of the appropriation and destruction of monastic buildings. A survey book compiled by William Brabazon records considerable detail about the appearance of five of the suppressed houses, indicating that they had a manorial character. An additional survey survives for the monastery at Rumburgh. The 'Little Dissolution' differed from the later dissolutions in a number of important respects, but some of the strategies developed were later redeployed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]